Songs of Heaven and Hell
by FaeWanderer
Summary: The advantage to going to hell is that you're already dead when you get there. Unless, of course, you're the Doctor, in which case you watch it unfold all around you. The Doctor's thoughts after Journey's End, One-shot Complete. Please read and review!


**Disclaimer: I do not own anything Doctor Who other than merchandise. Not trying to claim it.**

_A/N: Something that popped into my head while trying to explain the Companions to a new Doctor Who watcher. Please leave a review! Reviews make a very happy kitty in very stressful times._

**Songs of Heaven and Hell**

The advantage to going to hell is that you're dead before you get there.

Unless, of course, you're the Doctor, in which case you watch it unfold all around you.

You see it in the eyes of the ones you've left behind, in the ones you couldn't save or perhaps couldn't even try to. You see it in the eyes of those you've damned, those you've trapped, those you've changed beyond all recognition.

You see it in the tears of a beautiful blonde girl sobbing on a frozen strand of beach.

You see it in the weary resignation of a resourceful young woman who's just saved the world singlehandedly.

You see it in the blank eyes of a loudmouthed redhead where just moments ago there was friendship.

You hear it in the scream of sweet little Lynda-with-a-Y, in the determined snap of fingers on a sabotaged new station, in the splintering of glass around a black hole.

Because when you're the Doctor, you inspire people, and then can't save them from the things they've become. When they become brave, you can't protect them. When they become sick on experience, you can't make them innocent again.

When you're the Doctor, you surround yourself with Children of Time, people you love and respect, and watch them become a force of implacable nature, watch them choose to become weapons because you can't bring yourself to pick one up. You watch them destroy themselves in the name of protecting you.

And then the true hell: you keep doing it.

Because you're the Doctor, the very last of your kind, and being alone is such a terrible thing to be.

Closing the door of the TARDIS, the Doctor was already sunk deep in his melancholy thoughts. He could hear the concerned hum of the ship in the back of his mind but more like an echo, a memory rather than a real sound because it couldn't penetrate the fog in his brain. Despite the circumstances, she'd loved having so many people on board, especially Rose and Jack. She could even work up some enthusiasm for Martha, though the memorable experience of Martha trying to drive her still lingered in her awareness.

Stupid swamp.

But Jack had been there, and she loved Jack, loved listening to him argue with her Doctor over the bits of technology that somehow cobbled together to reform her console. And her own Rose…sometimes she caught herself looking through the Void for the tiny pinpricks of otherness that signified a natural breach into that dimension. She knew it wasn't allowed, but she still caught herself looking, because the blonde girl with the big smile had made her Doctor so very happy. And Mickey and Jackie always made her giggle softly, and Sarah Jane of course was an old friend.

She wasn't too sure about the Doctor's twin, but that was alright because he was leaving. And hopefully he'd make her Rose happy. If her Doctor couldn't be happy, perhaps her Rose could. A wise ship sometimes knows to settle for what she can get.

But now there was a new hole, a gap where one of her people should have been. Her Donna, or her DoctorDonna, she'd be perfectly content with either one, they're both full of sound and bombast. But there's a curious silence that doesn't belong, even as it's painfully familiar.

It's the sound of her Doctor's loneliness, the sound of his silent pain.

She knows what he had to do, and why he had to do it. She knows also that it doesn't make it any easier to live with.

So rather than repeat the hum louder, she simply croons in the foggy place in the back of his mind and chooses her own destination, waiting for his hands to release her into the Void.

The Doctor couldn't remember setting a particular location before he took off, but he wasn't much alarmed when he saw they'd landed. He and the TARDIS had been together a very long time and though she often surprised him, he trusted her completely. So he also didn't mind when she blacked out the monitors so he couldn't see where they were.

Maybe a new adventure was just what he needed. He could see some new world, one that had no memories of anyone else. And when he was running for his life, it didn't feel quite so much like just running away.

With that in mind, he threw open the doors of the TARDIS and took a deep breath.

And promptly slammed them close as soon as he opened his eyes.

The TARDIS made a small, displeased sound and he rubbed her side in silent apology.

But he didn't want to be here, wasn't sure it was something he was up for right now. Would ever be up for, if he was honest. The doors opened again, though, one side waggling slightly- in invitation or admonishment he wasn't sure- and so he took another breath and walked outside in the snow-strewn wind.

The foothills were covered in white powder, climbing up into the steep cliffs and arches where icicles hung in crystalline splendor over the depths. It was a barren wasteland in some respects, unaltered and seemingly untenable, and yet beautiful in its own stark way. He'd traveled to the furthest reaches of the universe and he'd yet to find something that didn't have some kind of unique beauty.

This was a beauty he'd seen before, but he wasn't sure if it was truly before or if it was after. He also wasn't sure which he wanted it to be.

But the creature walking towards him shows no sign of servitude, for all that his forebrain has been replaced with the translation globe clipped to his jacket.

Before, then. He'd been here before.

The Ood inclined its head respectfully as he stopped a short distance away from the Doctor and his blue police box. "Welcome back."

"You knew I was coming."

"We are patient, Doctor."

"_I_ didn't know I was coming."

"Didn't you?"

True enough, he granted after a moment's reflection. Somewhere was a stray thought, either unfound or unacknowledged, that had known he would have to return. IF only to find out for sure, he would have to return.

"The DoctorDonna," he said quietly. "We thought it was just a mistake, or a way of speaking. But it wasn't."

The Ood simply blinked at him.

"You knew what would happen."

"We knew what could, and what was likely to. We are patient, Doctor."

And he wasn't, he agreed, following the unspoken continuation. He braced himself against a strong breeze that swirled his coat around his thin legs, twirling madly in his hair and leaving it much the same as it was. He made an effort to listen to the sibilant whisper of the wind, and only the wind.

"She wept for our songs. For our captivity and pain, for our hope. Her tears were born of compassion for a people she'd never seen before. You helped her to hear, but she chose to listen."

Again an unspoken critique, not even a criticism so much as an observation.

With a deep, shuddering breath, the Doctor lowered his mental barriers and listened to the glorious song of the Ood. He could hear Donna's story woven through it, a single thread in a brilliant tapestry of creation, and yet somehow that thread shone brighter than any other. And there, a second thread, the DoctorDonna.

Tears burned against his eyelids as he listened. They didn't remember just the glorious accident of the human-Time Lord Metacrisis. They remembered _Donna_, every wonderful, brassy, confrontational piece of her. The Oodsong reverberated through the entire sector, reaching out across the gap between planets and bridging them with living memory of such delicate, infinite strength that the entire system seemed to sing. He should have heard it inside the TARDIS even, if he hadn't been so preoccupied and she hadn't wanted it to be quite the surprise.

The tears trickled down his cheeks, leaving scalding trails as the breeze kissed them away. Because of that metacrisis, he'd had to completely wipe away all of Donna's memories that spoke to anything unusual. Even what all of London knew she couldn't remember because it would lead her mind to other things that would destroy her. He couldn't undo the metacrisis, couldn't take away all the things that would overwhelm her, burn out her mind. He could only bury them.

Donna Noble, savior of the universe, fastest fingers in Chiswick, would never think of herself as more than just a temp. She would never know the bravery she'd shown, the incredible compassion, the resourcefulness and intelligence. She would never know any of what she'd done.

And she would always think of herself as a temp.

In 54 AD in Rome, a family thanked her as a household god. In a parallel universe, Rose remembered her as the one who saved her Doctor. In India, Mahatma Gandhi smiled fondly at her indignation on behalf of his people.

And on the Oodsphere, they sang all of her stories, and would for eternity. The Doctor stood and absorbed the heavenly song, not even noticing when his companion made a polite bow and left him alone in the snow. He simply listened, and when he was replete with memories of Donna, he wiped his face, turned, and entered the TARDIS, letting her choose their next destination.

Donna would never remember, but there were many who remembered for her.

Sometimes that had to be enough.

It was a very long road to hell, but sometimes it looked awfully similar to the one to heaven. Or maybe they simply led to the same place and it was the journey that decided where you were.

The Doctor smiled as the TARDIS crooned an echo of the Oodsong.


End file.
